Wednesday, 29 February 2012

2916 miles, 5 days

2600 miles, 4 days then wrecker home

This trip took me to Kimper, Ky. I left Thursday mid morning and went out to Portage La Prairie, Mb to load and met up en route with Clarence, Bryn and Neal in Lebanon, Indiana Saturday night. These guys were travelling in style in Clarence's pick up truck going to Nashville to take delivery of two brand new Freightliners. I made my delivery Saturday evening and picked up my reload in Lawrenceburg, Indiana Sunday afternoon, going straight back to Steinbach.
On my way home I managed to catch up with Bryn and Neal again in their new trucks, unfortunately only one was able to make it home under it's own steam! They look really nice but maybe not on the back of a tow truck.
Got home Monday evening and leave again Thursday morning with two drops on, 1st in Wisconsin and 2nd in Illinois.

Wednesday, 22 February 2012

3179 miles, 6 days

Chilly

Winter Wonderland

Just had a few days at home after this last trip. During my time at home we had the heaviest snowfall this year, about 9" overnight, so I spent a couple of hours Tuesday clearing the drive while Sue cleared the path. It looked good until it snowed again in the afternoon.
Next morning we were going up to Steinbach and there was 5 cars in just a few miles in the ditch, the snow had frozen during the night and made the roads extremely dangerous.
The roads are mainly clear again now and tomorrow I leave to go to Kimper, Ky, a load I have done a few times.

Saturday, 11 February 2012

This trip was going extremely well until........ I loaded and left Friday and delivered in Johnson City, Tn Monday morning. My reload was from Orangeburg, SC going to Mississauga, On to deliver Wednesday morning.

I informed dispatch I would be there Tuesday afternoon and was cleared to just switch in Mississauga and deliver my next load in Oakdale Mn. That's when my luck started to change.

I arrived at US Customs at the Detroit border Thursday 5.30am, the officer asked me the usual questions, handed back my passport and "FAST" card and said "Have a nice day", if only!

90 mile west of Detroit my phone rang, it was dispatch, "Dave, where are you?" "90 mile west of Detroit" "How did you manage to clear customs?" So I explained the process and the line went a little quiet then "ok I have a contact name and number at CBP (Customs and border patrol) Detroit that you need to call asap"

I called and it turned out that my load had been selected to go to x ray at Detroit before leaving, one problem..... the officer didn't ask me to go to x ray. There was no way around this, I had to return to detroit for x ray or they would come looking for me and if they had to do that I would be arrested.

5 hours later, a personal escort through the scanner and an encounter with the k9 unit at CBP I was now free to leave and head towards my delivery.

I arrived 3 hours late at my delivery because of this fiasco but they were very good about it, and I was now planned to switch trailers only 15 minutes away and take that load to Winnipeg.

Back home safe now and don't want to ever repeat what happened this week, it's not a nice feeling.

It came to light this week that a certain forum "British Truckers Abroad" has been getting paid by recruiters. That in itself is no big deal but they actively promote these companies as a good option to come to Canada, the latest pays 24.5 cents per mile, well below the average and would be almost impossible to live on. Their is plenty information out there and it is up to the individual to distinguish between fact and fiction.

I pride myself in being totally honest , although outspoken, and will continue to be so.

It seems I got banned from this forum for being abusive, I called the recruiter a liar when he claimed it was a great job with good opportunities, well sorry but 24.5 cpm is abysmal at best and would almost certainly lead to failure here in Canada.

If considering emigrating ask yourself a couple of questions before choosing your new employer.

If the job is as good as they promise why are they having trouble finding drivers and keeping them? Why are they spending a huge amount of money hiring full time recruiters and trainers to recruit from abroad?

Also be careful of some of the drivers sitting in their ivory towers claiming to know best, a few on this forum have already claimed that this is a good opportunity but yet would not do that job for that money themselves.

*UPDATE*

It seems that it is acceptable to have a go at drivers as a group but not as an individual, that will get you a ban and reported lolThis doesn't count by britincanadaquote "bleating, moaning, pessimistic British truckers who quite frankly would not get a job back in the UK anyway. Lets face it would you want to employ these wasters who slag off and slate everyone who trys to give others a chance there are to many on here"